Katie Pierson reads from her novel "‘89 Walls"

“This lively and well-turned novel has serious value. It’s stealth-history of a crucial year, 1989, when walls of all kinds come crashing down.”--Will Weaver, author of A Gravestone Made of Wheat

College is not in the cards for Seth. He spends his minimum wages on groceries, and fakes happiness to distract his mom from the MS they both know will kill her. It’s agony to carry around a frayed love note for a girl who’s both out of his league and beneath his dignity.

Quinn’s finishing high school on top. But that cynical, liberal guy in her social studies class makes her doubt her old assumptions. Challenging the rules now, though, would a) squander her last summer at home, b) antagonize her conservative dad, and c) make her a hypocrite.

Seth and Quinn’s passionate new romance takes them both by surprise. They keep it a secret: it’s too early to make plans and too late not to care. But it’s 1989. As politics suddenly get personal they find themselves fighting bare-fisted for their beliefs—and each other—in the clear light of day.

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Katie Pierson’s work has been published in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Minnesota Journal, and Nebraska Humanities. She grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and now lives with her family in a suburb of Minneapolis. ’89 Walls is her first novel.